Jell-O festival? There oughta be a law

I called Mason City, Iowa, to tell them if they dare hold a Jell-O festival in their town, I'll never visit them as long as I live.

"Have you ever been to Mason City?" asked Judy, the town secretary.

No, Judy, and if you have a Jell-O festival, I'll never set foot there and we won't ever have a chance to visit.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," said Judy.

I apologized for being rude, but explained my reasons. I'm a Jell-O hater.

Any Jell-O town festival will most likely include terribly sad and medicated clowns, and strange Jell-O recipes and booths advertising "Amazing things you can do with Jell-O!" staffed by grandmas with pearls eager to relate the histories of their various heirloom gelatin molds.

And Jell-O eating contests. And bizarre sculpture contests, with serious contestants determined to shape gallons of congealed Jell-O into the heads of presidents and other celebrities, as they must do in Springdale, Utah, where the Mormons take their Jell-O extremely seriously.

But my fellow Jell-O haters must already know the most terrifying aspect of such a festival:

In all the confusion, somebody is probably going to try and serve you some lime Jell-O with the floating pineapple chunks.

And if there's one thing I won't abide, it's Americans celebrating chunks of pineapple suspended in their sweetened gelatin food products.

There's nothing more noxious to my mind. I gag even when I write the words "pineapple" and "chunks" and "Jell-O" in the same sentence. There, I just did. And again, reading what I typed.

Now if Mason City had an alternative Jell-O festival, offering Flavors that Should Never Be, which I read on a Web site, I might just visit to watch others sample the delicacies.

And there were other varieties, many I wouldn't name in a family newspaper, but some were intriguing, such as such as bean dip and Velveeta Jell-O, and Spam, spleen with real mango pieces, falafel, liver, wet monkey and Janet Reno's bath-water Jell-O.

"They haven't decided on the festival yet," Judy said. "I think you should talk to the mayor."

Before I do, may I ask you something?

"Yes," Judy said.

Do you make the one with the floating chunks?

"Well, as a matter of fact I do," Judy said. "It's my favorite. But I use whipped cream in my Jell-O. So you can't see 'em."

You can't see the chunks?

"No," Judy said.

That's even worse. If you can't see them, they can surprise you. And then you crunch down on a pineapple chunk and know it for what it is, but by then, it's too late.

Later, I spoke to Mayor Roger Bang, and asked him about this proposed radical Jell-O festival of his.

"It's not mine," he said, guardedly, "although it is under discussion and we had a meeting. Kraft Foods has a rather large facility here, and employs a lot of people, and we're just in the talking stages at the moment. Don't you like Jell-O?"

No, I said, and I'd appreciate it if you'd pass an ordinance outlawing the mixing of fruit chunks with Jell-O.

"Well, I don't eat that one either," Mayor Bang told me.

You hate the pineapple chunks too?

"I'm not fond of it, but I eat Jell-O," he said. "I'm not going to stop anyone from eating what they want. The thing is, we don't legislate people's taste buds around here."

He'd already heard about the Chicago City Council ignoring corruption but fighting to stop foie gras. And he'd heard about the big smoking ban that applies to all restaurants in Chicago--except, mysteriously, for those on Rush Street, where they'll get around to it someday if they feel like it.

"Oh everyone's heard of what Chicago's done, but we don't do that around here," said Mayor Bang.

"If someone wants to eat Jell-O, that's their own decision. If some business wants to allow patrons to have a cigarette with their cup of coffee, that's the establishment's business. We're not into big government imposing its will on businesses here," said Mayor Bang.

Mayor Bang told me that the local paper, The Mason City Globe Gazette, just ran a story on the town council approving the festival plan, and the editors kindly sent the story to me.

"I get all wiggly when I think about it," said Councilman John Jaszewski about the Jell-O festival, according to the newspaper.

The town council agreed that a Jell-O fest was a good idea, and they agreed to talk some more about it before deciding.